Starlin Castro is the Cubs’ best player, but his rookie mistakes aren’t so endearing now that he’s in his third season.

With the Cubs up 2-1 in the fifth inning of Monday’s game and the Giants having the bases loaded with one out, Brandon Crawford hit a grounder to second baseman Darwin Barney. Barney made the throw to Castro covering at second, only to watch in dismay as Castro merely tagged the bag and started jogging off the field.

As it was, the ball was probably hit too slowly to be turned into an inning-ending double play anyway. Still, Castro almost surely would have attempted to turn it had he known the number of outs. His gaffe, on a play on which the Giants tied the game, earned him a disgusted look from starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija, and manager Dale Sveum wasn’t all that successful in covering up his own disappointment.

In Castro’s defense, he has seemingly cut back on the mental mistakes this season. He probably made more than any player in the league last year. Castro is just 22 and still has plenty of room to grow. The Cubs, though, are likely to be awfully upset if anything like this happens again anytime soon.

When I played ball as a SS, I made a routine of reminding everyone on the field how many outs there were as each batter came to the plate, and where the smart play went. I would imagine many of my teammates found it aggravating, but I was really only there to win ballgames, not make friends.

Shouldn’t someone be doing this on the Cubs? Or rather, make Castro do it and fine him whenever he fails to do so?

The article has one major flaw. It says that Castro is the Cubs best ballplayer. Note to the author: the comes don’t have any best ballplayers. This is the worst assembly of ballplayers one can imagine. Soriano is through, so is Marmol, Stewart and a whole bunch of others. Why not let them sit at home and bring up the youngsters. Give them some experience The season is over…and it is only June…how sad..usually we wait until July for such surrender.

IT’s no excuse but you take a guy who is already lacking the ability to concentrate and then have him on a losing team playing meaningless games and this is what you get. He might be the kind of guy who only plays well on a winning team where the games count for something.